"Singapore-based
World Sports Group (WSG) has started legal proceedings against
veteran journalist and soccer scholar James M Dorsey in a bid to
silence sources and squash reporting about its relationship with the
Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and disgraced FIFA vice president
and AFC president Mohammed Bin Hammam, who is at the center of the
worst corruption scandal in soccer history.”

Basudev Mahapatra

A decision by World Sport Group to pursue legal action against
Singapore-based soccer journalist James M Dorsey has received criticism from
world elite sports media circle. In his recent column in the ESPNSTAR.com,
columnist Jesse Fink has criticized the decision saying, “Dorsey case is a waste
of time”.

Appreciating Dorsey and his skill in journalism, Fink wrote in
his column Dorsey case is a waste of time, “I've known
Singapore-based football journalist James M Dorsey for some
time. I can vouch for his professionalism, his intelligence and
his industry. His blog,
The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, is
regularly mentioned in this column, chiefly because it's
outstandingly good. He is an ornament to the profession of
journalism and someone all followers of Asian football should be
very concerned about right now.”

Singapore-based World Sports Group (WSG) has started legal
proceedings against veteran journalist and soccer scholar James M Dorsey in a
bid to silence sources and squash reporting about its relationship with the
Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and disgraced FIFA vice president and AFC
president Mohammed Bin Hammam, who is at the centre of the worst corruption
scandal in soccer history.

A syndicated columnist, blogger and senior
fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,
Dorsey reported extensively on the PwC report as well as the web of
scandals that have wracked world soccer body FIFA and the AFC at which
Bin Hammam, a Qatari national, is at the core. His reports have been
posted on social media including Twitter, which has been cited in WSG’s
petition to the court. [See the report written by James M
Dorsey “The
World of Soccer: AFC reports to Malaysian Police about stolen payment
documents”.

After the report was published, WSG has
asked the Singapore High Court to instruct James M Dorsey to reveal how he
might have come into possession of internal AFC documents, including an
audit that puts on record unexplained payments of $14 million to Bin Hammam by one of the company’s shareholders in the walk-up to the
signing of its controversial $1 billion marketing rights contract with
the AFC. This was a direct attack on the impunity granted to a
journalist to keep its source secret for the safety of both the
journalist and the source as well. However, no part of the report or the
facts presented in the report have been questioned by WSG. Rather, the
report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), as mentioned in Dorsey’s report,
raises serious questions about how WSG was chosen, the terms of the
contract and how it was negotiated.

In an August 28 letter to
James M Dorsey, WSG Group Legal Counsel Stephanie McManus implicitly
admitted the accuracy of Dorsey’s reporting by acknowledging that his
sources “must have a very deep knowledge of the matters referred to in
your Article.” Ms. McManus went on to first respond to the allegations
against WSG in the PwC report and then demand that Dorsey take WSG-related
articles off his blog and reveal his sources. An August 30 letter by
WSG’s lawyers, Deborah Barker and Ushan Premaratne of KhattarWong
repeated Ms. Mc Manus’ again demanded the same in addition to demanding
an apology by columnist Dorsey. The letter asserted that Dorsey had been
an accessory to breach of confidentiality. It alleged that “your
distorted and unsubstantiated statements present your viewers with a
biased view and indicate malice on your part.”

However, James M Dorsey rejected WSG's demands and decided to vigorously defend himself
against all the claims made by WSG being represented by N. Sreenivasan
of Straits Law.

About the presentation of
data in the Dorsey’s report, ESPNSTAR.com columnist Fink mentions, “But
Dorsey wasn't the only journalist who came into possession of this audit
report. It was flying around the internet. Some, like Dorsey, chose to
publish the details contained in the report. Others did not” while
adding that “To my knowledge WSG has not disputed the veracity of
Dorsey's reporting.”

Fink has also quoted
Keir Radnedge from his blog, "WSG's initial action is not
understood to question the accuracy of Dorsey's reports and, indeed,
suggests that they are too accurate and embarrassing for comfort."

Disapproving any
action against Dorsey, Fink stated, “It should not be with Dorsey, who
was just doing what he regarded as his professional duty.”

"Every journalist has
a duty to report the truth and the great concern about many sport
organisations has been a lack of transparency about their business
dealings," Fink mentioned quoting Gianni Merlo, president of AIPS, the
International Sports Press Association.

As meant by Fink and
Radnedge, the agenda of WSG behind the actions is to have Dorsey "reveal
how he may have come into possession of internal AFC documents" which is
a clean encroachment into the professional rights of a journalist in
order to bring the truth to public. Rather to get to know how the
information came to public, WSG could quiz PwC and AFC about how the
report was leaked.

But initiating such legal action against a
journalist, who just brought the truth to public, and pressurising him
to reveal his sources is a direct attack on the professional rights and
immunity granted to a journalist and is, also, an attack on right to
free speech.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological
University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The
Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. To me, Dorsey is a prolific writer and
columnist with an extraordinary ability of speaking middle east politics
through the game of football. His pieces are excellent analysis! And,
above all, Journalists and media commentators of such stature must be
kept free to speak out their views.